Fanatacism Quotes

“These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy...walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“When the late Pope John Paul II decided to place the woman so strangely known as “Mother” Teresa on the fast track for beatification, and thus to qualify her for eventual sainthood, the Vatican felt obliged to solicit my testimony and I thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsignor, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic. In the course of this, I discovered that the pope during his tenure had surreptitiously abolished the famous office of “Devil’s Advocate,” in order to fast‐track still more of his many candidates for canonization. I can thus claim to be the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“I know exactly what is at stake, Captain. You are trying to convince yourself that whatever cause you follow is worth that girl's death.
I know all about gods, Captain. I know that a god that demands a child's life is not a god worth saving. Choose. ”
― Ursula Vernon, Digger: The Complete Omnibus

“People will tie in with a fanatic if for no other reason than to break the monotony of their lives.”
― Mark Clifton, They'd Rather Be Right

“Kotov looked like an abandoned statue on the beach in the Plaza de Cataluna. The spring was at is height and the warm un bathed the city. The adviser, with his face slightly raised, was receiving the heat like a lizard slothful from the rays that were injecting him with life. He had even taken off his jacket and the printed kerchief he regularly wore after Ramon sat down at his side.

'What a marvelous country!' he said at last, and smiled. 'I could live here for the rest of my life.'

'Despite the Spaniards?'

'Precisely because of you. Where I come from, the people are like stones. You are all flowers. My country smells like smoked herring and hops; here it smells of olive oil and wine.'

'Your pals say we're primitive and practically dumb.'

'Don't pay too much attention to those lunatics. They confuse ideology with mysticism, and they are no more than walking machines - worse still, they're fanatics. Here they make themselves look tough, but you should see them when Moscow calls for them... Na khuy. They shit themselves. Don't look to them as an example; you don't want to be like them. You can be so much more.'

p. 162”
― Leonardo Padura Fuentes, El hombre que amaba a los perros

“You could believe you were living virtuously and also murder people if you were a fanatic. Fanatics thought that murdering people was virtuous, or murdering certain people.”
― Margaret Atwood